Bad Fiscal Policies Are a Worse Scandal Than the Panama Papers – Reason.com

President Barack Obama, on the other hand, recognizes that most of the activities reported in the stolen pages are legal. As such, he wants to do something that might be even more radical than what France has done. He proposes making it illegal to legally reduce one’s tax burden. Falling back on some generic and zero-sum concept of tax fairness, he told reporters that we “shouldn’t make it legal to engage in transactions just to avoid taxes” and that he wants to enforce “the basic principle of making sure everyone pays their fair share.”

No matter what paper you read or what program you listen to, this story is couched only in terms of a groundbreaking discovery that exposes how everyone and every company linked to an offshore account has run afoul of the legal system. Not true.